SK Telecom to add game features to its ifland platform

Tech

Published: 13 Apr. 2022, 14:53 Updated: 13 Apr. 2022, 16:46

SK Telecom to add game features to its ifland platform

Executives from SK Telecom and Morph Interactive take part in an online ceremony on the telecom company's metaverse platform ifland on Wednesday with their virtual avatars. From left are: Cho Ik-hwan, vice president of the Metaverser development division at SK Telecom's Metaverse unit; Yang Maeong-seog, vice president of SK Telecom's Metaverse unit' Kim Jung-yeol, CEO of Morph Interactive; and Yoo Jae-ho, vice president of portfollio management office at SK Telecom. [SK TELECOM]

SK Telecom will add new features in its metaverse platform ifland that will let users play games and create and sell in-game items within this year.

The company said on Wednesday that it has bought an unspecified stake in local 3-D graphic developer Morph Interactive to jointly develop the new functions for ifland. The investment volume was also undisclosed.

The signing ceremony was held through ifland, where the two companies’ executives took part with their virtual avatars.

Morph Interactive has been cooperating with SK Telecom since the beginning stages of ifland’s launch and has expertise in mobile game development, the telecom company said.

With the new functions, users will be able to play games with each other and create their own items and maps that can be used or bought by other users.

SK Telecom will also let users issue non-fungible tokens (NFT) of avatars and other digital merchandise and trade them through ifland. Users will be able to cash their cyber money into real money.

“We will collaborate with more companies with technology in the metaverse so that ifland is accepted globally,” said Yang Maeng-seog, head of the SK Telecom metaverse unit, in a press release.

BY YOON SO-YEON [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]